Offer non-believers ethics, schools told

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Ethics should be taught in public schools for students who do
not attend scripture lessons to save them wasting time "colouring
in", the state parents' group says.

Scripture has been part of secular public education for more
than a century, but in many schools non-believers go to the library
or playground, or watch videos during the weekly classes.

The NSW Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations and the
St James Ethics Centre have proposed the development of an ethics
syllabus to provide meaningful lessons during the timetabled
scripture class.

The federation's president, Sharryn Brownlee, said ethics
education would be debated today at the annual conference in
Sydney, but already had strong support from the executive.

"One of the biggest concerns of parents is that children are
meaningfully engaged. If they don't go to scripture, they shouldn't
be just colouring in or sitting in the playground."

Simon Longstaff, the executive director of St James Ethics
Centre, said in an essay that ethics education was "all the more
pressing" because of the drift towards a "more secular society" and
the increasing number of parents who spurned scripture. He said
successive state governments had "ensured" schools had no useful
alternative to scripture.

The review also observed that: "Ethics, the study of morals and
values, is valuable for its own sake and … people can be
moral without being religious."

The president of the Batemans Bay Public School P&C, Michael
Brassil, said there was a "vacuum" for the non-scripture students,
which could be filled by teaching them about the "ethical basis for
behaviour" just as scripture lessons studied a belief system.

The Minister for Education, Carmel Tebbutt, said she would await
the outcome of the P&C conference, but said values were already
taught in public schools.

She said she would need to be convinced there was a strong case
before adding anything to the curriculum.

Her predecessor, Andrew Refshauge, ruled out an earlier proposal
from the centre.

Scripture is taught for an average of 40 minutes a week in about
70 per cent of public primary schools, but is less common in high
schools.